BOC,BRAIN: Sound (what Carl said)

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On fre 8 nov 1996 09.15 "John A Swartz" <jswartz at MBUNIX.MITRE.ORG> wrote:
> I think part of it is the CD - I think part of it was the times (while
> there's alot of *good* albums from that time period, real *heaviness*
> wasn't there on most of them - even those early Black Sabbath albums
> with some really crunching tunes didn't have that "wall of guitar"
> sound that started to become more prevalent around the 80's I think),
> and perhaps part of it is that BOC didn't start out as a "heavy metal"
> group -- SWU was more like the Grateful Dead and the Doors, and SFG
> was sort of a bit like the Byrds.

     Well, I'm not thinking of the "wall of guitars" sound.  As for the
guitar sound, the sound on early Sabbath is pretty good--plenty of crunch,
not too much gain.  I like it much better than the buzzy, fizzy sound of a
lot of contemporary metal (not to be confused with the "fuzz" of a good
fuzz-box :)  Brock of HW had a good guitar sound going on the Doremi/SR era
thing as well.  Step forward to Gaz Jennings of Cathedral who has one of my
favorite current guitar tones (recipe: humbuckers plus enormous British
amps :)

     But guitar tone is not what I'm really thinking of on the early BOC
albums as the sound problem.  It's more in the dynamic range of the
recordings, the EQing ... something like that.  Very narrow, not much
depth.
Even the Doors and the Dead got a pretty full sound compared to the early
BOC albums.  Sometimes I feel very frustrated listening to them, since it
sounds like there's a lot there--dynamic range-wise--which didn't make it
as far as my CD, if not the original master tape itself!  No, BOC wasn't
crunching like Iommi or Brock, but I think the first couple of albums sound
unnecessarily muffled.

> Listen to the mix of tunes on the
> first BOC album even -- Last Days of May is more jazzy than rock

     Of course, that's the genius!  The fusion of those concepts brought a
unique edge and sound to the music.  Heavy, yeah.  Rocking, yeah.  And
*cunning*.

Cheers,
Carl